New L+M assessment identifies top community health issues

The Day – Saturday, May 9, 2026
By John Penney

A newly-released community needs assessment conducted by Lawrence + Memorial Hospital identified three health areas that community stakeholders and healthcare providers said require priority attention: behavioral health, chronic disease and prenatal and maternal care.

In addition to highlighting those issues, the 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) also lists the hospital’s plans to address the challenges, either by continuing and enhancing existing programs or by introducing new offerings.

“We use the (CHNA) as an opportunity to connect with our community partners and hear what their proprieties are and use those discussions to have conversations internally,” Lindsey Greene-Upshaw, senior manager and regional lead for the hospital’s Office of Health Equity and Community Impact, said on Wednesday. “The focus is how we approach these issues and become better partners.”

CHNA assessments for not-for-profit hospitals like L+M are required by the IRS to be conducted every three years, with the planning for the latest iteration started in 2024 in partnership with the Health Improvement Collaborative of Southeastern Connecticut and the Eastern Connecticut Health Collaborative.

Identifying pressing needs

After hiring a consultant, data gathering began last summer by way of surveys which 185 participants responded to; interviews with representatives of more than 20 health and social service agencies; and a series of 18 bilingual focus group discussions.

Six pressing issues were identified through the interviews. In addition to those related to behavioral health, maternity and chronic disease, participants selected food insecurity, overdoses, and health insurance and navigation — finding providers and booking appointments — as other major community issues.

Hospital leadership next winnowed the list to its top three “priority” issues to be addressed by 2028 by bulking up existing programs and adding new ones.

“That doesn’t mean we’re abandoning those other issues,” Greene-Upshaw said. “But many of them are already being addressed by our partner groups that specialize in those areas. We want to focus on issues squarely in the hospital’s purview, the ones we can move the needle on.”

In addition, Yale New Haven Health, which oversees L+M and several other Connecticut hospitals, also chose to revisit the issue of “culturally competent care,” or ensuring that language barriers or other related issues do not impede access to care.

“The assessment process gave us critical insight into our community’s evolving health needs, including access to care and the ways social drivers influence health outcomes,” L+M President Richard Lisitano said in a report announcement. “Just as important, it ensured that community voices were central to shaping our priorities and the strategies the hospital will use to address them.”

Race and income disparities noted

On the issue of behavioral health, assessment participants said a shortage of providers, coupled with long wait times and limited availability, made it difficult to access timely mental health care.

And of those seeking care, there were noted disparities based on race and income.

The assessment found Black adults living in the Greater New London Region — which includes New London, East Lyme, Groton, Ledyard, Lyme, North Stonington, Old Lyme, Stonington and Waterford — had a mental health hospitalization rate of 10.4 per 1,000 individuals, or more than twice the state average. Anxiety rates for those screened for depression here were higher among lower income patients, the report found.

Black mothers were less likely to receive early prenatal care and nearly twice as likely to have low birth weight infants compared to white mothers.

Community partners noted there are challenges for rural residents to access OB/GYN care, as well as for those who lose insurance coverage during pregnancy.

Residents with chronic illnesses struggle to manage their health issues due to high treatment costs, transportation issues and a shortage of local specialists, the report found.

Individuals earning less than $30,000 a year were more than twice as likely to report asthma — which can be worsened by poor housing conditions and limited access to care — compared to those earning $100,000 annually.

Hospitalizations for asthma, heart failure and high blood pressure in the Greater New London Region were found to exceed state averages. For instance, 4.3 of every 1,000 Connecticut adults with heart failure are hospitalized, compared with 9.9 Greater New London Region residents.

“Asthma and other chronic diseases are more common among low-income residents, reflecting broader challenges in managing long-term health conditions,” the report stated.

Tackling the issues

A CHNA implementation overview document breaks down how the hospital plans to tackle the issues.

In the area of chronic disease, including diabetes, that will mean continuing existing programming like nutritional counseling, school-based asthma programming, heart-failure clinics and the screening of patients on their food, housing and transportation needs.

The hospital also plans in 2028 to open a new three-year family care residency program, where new primary care doctors will be trained at the Multispecialty Center on Howard Street.

Greene-Upshaw said behavioral health was highlighted by “every single hospital as a priority issue” in their respective assessments.

“Unfortunately, that didn’t come as a surprise to anyone,” she said.

L+M plans over the next several years to provide psychiatric training to nurses, ramp-up suicide prevention training and organize an annual mental health symposium with relevant mental health lectures.

On the prenatal and maternal care side, the hospital is exploring the addition of a nursing home visit program while continuing to host new parent sessions, distributing baby supplies and conducting depression and child development screenings.

Greene-Upshaw said the success of the initiatives will be measured through internal metrics.

“Another way is by hearing from the community about whether they see and feel those differences,” she said.

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